


rintori fic collection

by searwrites (sears)



Category: Free!
Genre: Fic Collection, M/M, each chapter is its own fic, see each chapter summary for fic warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1958031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>originally posted to tumblr</p><p>----------</p><p>these are all originally prompts from my askbox on tumblr. each chapter is its own respective fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. kissing nitori's mole

**Author's Note:**

> rin/nitori | for anon prompt of “rin likes to kiss the mole on nitori’s face” | warnings for excessive fluff, i guess

When Nitori was younger he would read stories about romance and fantasy- tales where two people are destined to be one, threads that connect their fingers. He would read these stories and his chest would feel light and full of air, and it almost felt like falling for these people you would never know.

It’s a little bit different, in reality.

With Rin it was a lot more like stumbling than falling. Sort of desperate grasps at air that produced a whole lot of nothing. For a while it felt like Rin hated him, and Nitori would curse those stories for lying to him, for giving him false hope.

But people, real people, are more complex than princes and princesses. A simple  _“Ai, just keep calm,”_  was an unexpected lift. Rin could be his prince, he just might be fighting different battles in different ways. Nitori never was one to give up hope, even though all signs had seemed to point to it.

  
Rin is more than a prince. He’s the captain of their team now, their leader. Even when Nitori’s dead weight makes them lose the relay, he smiles and puts a hand in his hair and says, “Don’t worry about it.”

It’s a whole different kind of falling from there.

  
Now when Rin catches Nitori’s head lolling backwards in his chair, his desk in all sorts of disarray, fading fast into sleep after hours of studying, Rin slides another hand into his hair. This time it’s less of a ruffle and more a caress- a slight scrape of Nitori’s scalp with blunt fingernails that makes a pleasant shiver run down his spine.

“You need to sleep, Ai. You can’t practice without rest.”

Nitori looks up behind him, his eyes still foggy with sleep and his brain slowly shutting down for the night. He mumbles out a slurred, “There are studies that say your brain is more alert with less than 5 hours of sleep per night, you need to round the percentage of sleep to activity and find-”

“Ai,” Rin says firmly, a command, coupled with another gentle scratch of his scalp. Nitori breathes out a choppy, but thankfully silent, whimper, “Sleep. Now.”

Nitori nods and yawns a mumbled, “Yes Rin-senpai,” and by the time he’s tripping over his books, his body too tired to right himself, Rin is even laughing quietly when he steadies him until he can make it to the bed. Nitori has the delirious urge to kiss him goodnight, but that might ruin things, so he makes a note to stop studying so late and be less disorganized with his time.

  
-

Nitori is at the pool after hours, which is technically breaking school rules, so he scampers out of it, slipping his wet feet against the tile when he sees Rin standing near the edge of it- glaring at him.

“I’m sorry Rin-senpai,” he says, frantically out of breath and bowing.

Rin lifts Nitori’s head up by his chin, a gentle tilt, and it feels like Nitori’s entire body lifts with it.

“Why are you here so late?” he asks, his eyes scanning the damp flushed skin of Nitori’s face.

“I was practicing,” he replies obediently, gulping nervously, Rin’s fingers still holding his neck stretched taut.

“I guessed that,” Rin says, the barest hint of a smile in his eyes. “Why so late at night? You practiced all day already.”

Nitori isn’t sure how to say it without sounding pathetic. There’s a small moment of panic where his eyes don’t seem to know where to look, and his pulse quickens- and Rin must actually feel it because he strokes Nitori’s jaw with his thumb to calm him.

“I’m not angry,” Rin says, because he must think Nitori needs to hear it, “I don’t want you overworking yourself when you don’t have to.”

It’s something in the gentle sincerity of Rin’s words that has Nitori blurting, “I just want to be the best for you Rin-senpai. I will be the best for you someday, I promise.”

Rin huffs out a quiet laugh, and mutters, “Dummy,” and Nitori’s heart feels like it falls out of his chest. That is, until Rin dips down and kisses him right below his startled closed eye, the mole there now like a physical mark of reminder.

“What was that for?” he asks in a daze, because Rin’s hand has now moved to the back of his neck, massaging out the shocked tension, and Nitori has never understood this part of falling for someone- the part where they actually might want you back.

“You’re fine,” Rin says, letting his hand drop from Nitori altogether, “You only have to be the best for yourself, Ai, not me.”

_But you make me sleep early and manage how I study, but you let me compete when I’m not up to standard, I have to be better for you,_  he thinks.

He says none of it though, only timidly agrees to stick to the practices Rin gives him, his cheek still burning from the press of Rin’s mouth, and his heart lodged somewhere in his throat because of it.

-

Things are a little bit different than stories. The way they progress, they way there is no happy endings- or no endings at all, really. Now Nitori sleeps on his bunk with his face closest to the ladder, backwards from how it sometimes is, only so when Rin climbs up the first few rungs, he can rest his chin on the thin mattress there and face Nitori when he tips his head up.

“Lights out,” he says, because Rin The Captain doesn’t seem to ever switch off.

Nitori tucks his book beneath his pillow, which Rin catches sight of and snatches out from under him, despite a squeaked protest coming from Nitori.

“Fairytales, huh?” he says, examining the cover.

“I wasn’t going to keep reading, Senpai, it would be too dark anyway.”

“Good,” Rin says, tossing the book down to his own bed, to do with it what he will. “You need rest. Today was exhausting, even for me.”

Nitori nods in agreement, reluctant to tilt his face back down and away from Rin. In fact, he shifts his chin outwards a little, a silent pleading, and exhales shakily when Rin dips down to kiss his soft and seeking mouth.

"Why do you treat me like I’m your best swimmer?" Nitori asks quietly when Rin pulls away, half afraid to even hear the answer.

All Rin does is bite down a smile, the way his mouth twists into an almost shy smirk at the corners a poor attempt at hiding it, and says, “Maybe you are.”

"Oh," it all Nitori’s hazy mind can think to say. It was Rin that once told him to stop putting himself down.

Rin is one of the most affectionate people Nitori has ever known, which was a shock to learn in full, so one small kiss, of course, isn’t enough. He kisses up to the corners of Nitori’s eyes, kisses his mole and then over to his nose, bites gently on the very tip of it- all while Nitori giggles and squirms beneath him.

“Thought it was lights out, Senpai?” Nitori asks, timidly suggestive, and Rin huffs.

“Brat. Go to bed.”

Rin hops down off the ladder, and Nitori’s grinning so hard it’s hurting his cheeks, and he lets out a shocked little _‘oomph’_  when Rin jumps back up to give him one last lingering kiss goodnight.

There are princes and people, stories and life, and maybe Rin - for Nitori - could be something like both.


	2. affectionate lover rin/nitori in lingerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rin/nitori | combining this with another anon prompt of “Can I have rintori with either ai or rin in lingerie please?” | warnings for bras/panties on boys, sexual content | nc17 obviously

It’s barely after sundown at night on campus, and Nitori has probably only been waiting for less than half an hour, but it feels like an age. Rin should be back any minute now, and Nitori squirms restlessly from where he’s sitting in the middle of Rin’s mattress, his small frame engulfed by one of Rin’s hoodies. When Rin walks in it’ll look like it’s all he’s wearing, which is close, but that isn’t  _quite_  the case.

It feels like Nitori’s heart has migrated to his throat, pulsing in waves that make him feel almost light headed. Everything feels so off limits, so much like it was before, but it was  _Rin_  who almost asked for it, smirking boyishly when Nitori said he’d do anything he wanted for him-  _“That’s a dangerous thing to offer someone,”_  Rin had said lowly, right into Nitori’s ear after practice, before they’d even gotten to their dorm, and the rest was improvised.

So when Rin does enter the room, he looks a little warily curious of Nitori, stopping in front of the door after it’s closed like he isn’t sure if he should say something or not. Nitori plucks whatever courage he can to keep from shaking, and he stands from the bed, the sleeves of Rin’s hoodie falling over his knuckles and the hem of it barely covering the tops of his thighs.

“Is that mine?” Rin asks, his voice tighter than usual. Not the angry sort of tight, but more reigned in and nervous.

Nitori nods, his face already burning, as he carefully unzips the hoodie.

Which is about the time when Rin’s body does this exhale-and-deflate sort of sigh, where he slumps backwards against the door and looks at Nitori like his existence in this room is unfairly painful.

“I wasn’t sure what color you’d like,” Nitori says, blushing to the tips of his ears, Rin’s hoodie fallen off of his shoulders and gathered at his bent elbows- as if hiding his forearms and nothing else will make it more modest. “So I got white.”

Rin takes a hesitant step forward, and then another, his chest shivering with each inhale. He takes in the sight before him- Nitori’s pale, slim body with nothing but a very flimsy set of lace bra and panties, sheer white. The bra was the smallest cup Nitori could find, so it fits almost flush to the skin of his chest, no underwires.

It’s like he blooms a second heartbeat when Rin touches him, his body surging in response to the delicate press of Rin’s fingers around the edges of the lace- tracing the triangular V of the bra up and then down to his sternum, down the shivering curve of his stomach to barely touch the hem near his hip.

“This is for me?” Rin asks- or whispers, rather, like it’s a secret.

“Yes, Senpai.”

Rin, very delicately, straightens Nitori’s arms so that his hoodie falls to the floor. He then walks Nitori backwards, until the backs of his legs hit the frame of their bunk. Nitori is on the brink of something like fear- this electric expectation where he’s ready to end up face down in Rin’s pillows, his legs spread and back arched, bottom poised in offering.

So it’s a little alarming that instead of reaching for Nitori’s hips to turn him around, Rin reaches right for either side of his face, cups his cheeks like he’s made of something precious and breakable.

“You didn’t have to do this much,” Rin says, though he’s smiling so wide his eyes are slits. It’s a lazy sort of happiness, one that almost makes him look drunk, and the notion that Nitori is the one making him feel that way makes Nitori’s stomach flutter.

“I wanted to,” he says, somewhat defiantly with a pout. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that Rin might not actually want this, even though his face is making it obvious.

Rin lets go of this breathy little laugh, and then rubs the pads of his fingers across Nitori’s cheekbones as he kisses him. Nitori’s heard the phrase ‘take my breath away’ before, but he didn’t realize how close to literal it could be- how the sudden swell of his heartbeat makes him short of air, how he’s sharing whatever breath he has with Rin. By the time Rin is licking Nitori’s mouth open he’s whimpering, because it’s overwhelming. Being touched like this, kissed like Rin never wants to forget his taste, held like he’s the best thing Rin’s seen all day- overwhelming is the only word for it.

Laying down on his back wasn’t expected, so by the time Rin is crawling between his legs, stripping off his tshirt and knocking his elbow with a hiss of pain against the upper frame of their bunk, Nitori starts laughing out of nervous panic.

Rin blushes, assuming it’s from being clumsy at undressing himself, and then flops down ontop of Nitori, puts his entire weight on his chest.

“That isn’t fair,” Rin moans into his neck, and Nitori’s groin aches as he instinctively grips the back of Rin’s hair, his hips involuntarily rolling upwards.

“What- what isn’t?” Nitori stutters.

“You?  _Shit_. You can’t laugh like that, it kills me.”

Nitori’s heart drops a little, and he asks, “Why?”

Rin must hear the concern in his voice, because he pulls back, smiling like a shy little kid, and kisses the very center of Nitori’s lips. “It’s a good thing. I can’t explain it.”

“Oh,” Nitori says, and then he whimpers shakily when Rin’s fingers dip below the hem of the panties.

“Can I take them off?” Rin asks quietly, and Nitori almost doesn’t know how to react. He wasn’t expecting to be asked, he was expecting for Rin to just  _take_ , but this is somehow infinitely better.

Nitori nods silently, and then yelps a little when Rin hoists his hips until his thighs are resting over top of Rin’s. Rin pushes his knees together, every touch so gentle, like one might handle a flower at risk of wilting, and then pulls the delicate lace over the curve of his backside and then his thighs. It feels so decadent to be touched this way that Nitori ends up pointing his toes to help them fall from his ankles once Rin has them most of the way off.

Rin ends up keeping the bra on, but eventually slides the straps so they hang off of Nitori’s shoulders, so the bra is less constructed and more a drape of fabric across his chest. Rin kisses him there, down from the hollow of his throat, licking at his nipples until they’re swollen and pink. Nitori is a writhing, panting mess by the time Rin is tugging his own jeans down, and he isn’t even thinking about what comes next, until Rin pulls away from him completely.

“Are you sure?” Rin asks when he returns, his back hunched, his nose nuzzling Nitori’s, fingers slicked and poised between Nitori’s trembling legs.

Nitori nods, and then in a flash of stuttered moments he’s tossing his head back and moaning, breached by Rin’s fingers and finally connected to the one person he didn’t think would ever allow it.

Everything else comes in a series of blurred stages. Of Rin muttering quiet things in English, slicking himself with one hand while the other stays propped by Nitori’s shoulder. Of sliding into Nitori and moaning right into the side of his face, his mouth open and eyes closed, like he can’t believe anything could ever feel this good. Of Nitori begging incoherently, wrapping his legs around Rin’s waist once he’s settled his weight, licking the shell of his ear and babbling  _more, Rin-Senpai, I need it, please._

By the time Nitori is so delirious with pleasure that it seems like he’s lost his ability to focus, Rin is grabbing either side of his face again, staring down at him.

“Are you close?” he asks, his breathy voice trembling, and when Nitori whimpers out a “yes” he kisses Nitori so hard it feels like his lips will bruise from it. It isn’t painful as much as it is alarming- how deep you can let someone in, and how it can still feel like it’ll never be enough.

Rin comes with a muffled shout, his face pressed between Nitori’s turned head and the pillows behind him, his biceps shaking violently with the effort of keeping himself up. Once he’s gathered some of his wits, he sits back and tugs Nitori’s thighs back over his own, his cock still warm and softening inside of Nitori.

He spits on his hand and then starts rubbing Nitori, the reciprocated focus of pleasure alarming enough to make Nitori shout. Rin hushes him, strokes him firm and slick, tells him, “Come for me, I want to see it. You’re so good, Ai, you feel  _so good_.”

Nitori comes to with his own fist stuffed into his mouth, his knuckles indented from his own teeth, and Rin hovering over him with the dopiest looking grin Nitori thinks he’s ever seen on him. It’s all it takes for Nitori to grab Rin by the back of his neck and yank him down for a lazy kiss.

“That was incredible,” Rin huffs, rolling onto his back next to Nitori, and Nitori blushes, “ _You’re_  incredible.”

Nitori smiles helplessly, shoves weakly at Rin’s arm, his own bashful way of saying  _‘well, you’re embarrassing’_.

Rin laughs and leans over to kiss Nitori’s sweaty forehead before climbing over his splayed out limbs. He picks up the panties, and the hoodie, all while Nitori sits up to unclasp the bra, scratching at the itchy marks it left around his ribs.

There’s a moment of deep inner decision making that Rin seems to take on- where his brow creases and he seems unsure of whether or not he wants to give Nitori the panties or the hoodie. Nitori is a little confused by it, until Rin grins and hands him the hoodie, balling up the panties in his fist.

“I’m keeping these,” he says, smirking, and Nitori huffs out a quiet laugh.

“I told you it was for you, Senpai,” he says, and quickly looks down to the heap of fabric on his lap before he has a chance to see if Rin caught the hinted meaning there.

Nitori tosses the bra off the bed onto the floor, which Rin rolls his eyes at right before picking up, and then Nitori snuggles back up in the comforting scent of Rin’s hoodie.

There’s a small stretch of silence, where Rin tucks the balled up panties into his own drawer, and Nitori is hit by a fresh wave of nerves. He asks Rin quietly, “Did you like it?”

Rin walks over to him, drops to his knees, and kisses the side of Nitori’s neck, right near his jaw. It puts him at the shiver-inducingly perfect angle to whisper warmly in his ear, “Of course I did, idiot.”

Later that night Rin goes out to get them food and water, even though Nitori claims he already ate - “You need to hydrate, at least,” Rin mumbles, his face bright red - it’s nice to be looked after. And maybe he never expected this, but never before has a plan gone so  _right_.


	3. sleepy sex/shower sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anonymous asked:  
> do you still rintori? if you don't, you can delete this. but i have a fierce need for rin fucking ai in the shower?"
> 
> rin/nitori | combining with another anon prompt of 'rinai sleepy sex', where rin is in college and nitori is in his last year of highschool | warnings for sleeping pills, drowsy sex, dirty talk, overexertion | nc17

It’s a chilly beginning to spring, which only makes it easier to stay awake - the way the frost dries out your throat, the way breathing becomes a steady effort. Nitori thinks of Rin swimming drills in the olympic-size heated pool at his university and it’s got this calming effect on him now, thinking of Rin. He’s happy nearly all the time, day by day becoming closer to his goals, only a few outstretched fingertips away from touching the stars.

For Nitori, it isn’t so easy.

Nothing comes on a platter to him, though he never likes to compare. Swimming was a chore he had to give up prematurely. Rin said it was okay, that he had to focus on himself more, on his studies, though he’d seemed more sad than Nitori to see that part of his routine go.

Even now, going on fifteen hours writing his paper,  _none_  of it feels easy. He swims for fun, and yet he still never seems to have enough time to succeed in school. It’s nearing four in the morning, and the edges of his eyes burn and his body feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton, light but heavy all the same. It’s the longest he’s ever gone staring at a computer screen, and he practically whimpers in relief when it’s done. He slams the top of his laptop shut, crawls into his bunk as quietly as possible, and then waits.

Only, sleep doesn’t come. It lingers around the edge of his conscious mind, taunting him, making his eyes heavy but his mind bright. Everything he’s studied for the past week is playing on a loop on the backs of his eyelids, and it’s like everytime he tries to shut his eyes he relives it all.

Luckily the boy down the hall, Seiji, is a sort of mind altering connoisseur. Whether you need to chow down on caffeine pills to make the day-long study stint as lucid as possible, or if you need a horse tranquilizer to knock you out after your body has forgotten what sleep feels like - he’ll take care of you.

So, another ten hours later, Nitori swallows down a thick white pill and waits. In five minutes he feels nothing and wants to cry. In ten he feels like calling Rin and telling him to travel the hour it takes him to get here just to rub his back. In fifteen he begins to laugh at the way only one half of his mouth seems to want to move, making his smile lopsided. In twenty he’s stroking his stomach and falling between fabric and feathers, and in thirty he’s out like a light.

\--

Nitori wakes after what feels like an entire winter’s hibernation to over ten missed calls on his phone, along with an almost equal number of text messages, all from Rin.

_‘ai pick up the phone’_

_‘ai i’ve been waiting for 2 hours please tell me you didn’t forget’_

_‘are you mad at me?’_

_‘ai pick up!!’_

_‘baby please :(‘_

_‘im worried now’_

They only get exponentially more frantic and forlorn as he scrolls, so Nitori immediately calls him, without giving his brain a chance to play catch up with the rest of the world.

“What’s going on?”

“God,” Rin says, though it’s more like a heavily exhaled breath of relief, “You’re asking  _me_  what’s going on? Ai, I’ve been waiting at the station for you for nearly an hour.”

Nitori has a stop motion moment of panic where he drops his phone, picks it up, looks at the time and date, and then mashes it back to his ear.

“I am so sorry! I slept for an entire day, oh  _god_.”

“What? Why did you sleep for a day?”

Nitori is already jumping out of his bed, fumbling a little, his legs still wobbly from sleep. It feels like his body is a jello mold, one that hasn’t fully set yet. “I’m coming now, I’ll get the next train, I’m so sorry.”

“Ai, what happened?” Rin pleads, sounding hopelessly distressed. Nitori is usually the punctual one while Rin has a habit of sometimes running a few minutes late. Being this disorganized is indicative of lapsing back into laziness, into how he was two years ago, before Nitori made a firm decision to keep himself on track - all while Rin promised to support him.

It makes sense that he’s worried, of course, but Nitori can’t really explain while also rushing out the door, so he says, “I’ll tell you when I get there,” and bolts.

By the time he gets to Rin’s studio apartment, it feels like he’s run a marathon. That half-formed jelly his body was before is now a pathetic slush, all sloppy movements and shivers. He must have some sort of sleeping pill hangover, because his hands won’t stop trembling.

Rin, of course, notices right away.

“Hey,” he says, holding Nitori by the side of his neck with a warm palm, which only makes Nitori panic more, because surely he can feel how rapid his pulse is from there. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, or what?”

“I’m just tired,” he says with a jerky shrug, and Rin frowns down at him. “I am!”

“How tired?” Rin asks, and then groans a little when Nitori stutters and says nothing. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I stayed up all night writing my paper, okay? Seiji gave me a pill, I overslept.”

“For a fucking  _day_?” Rin shrieks, and then frowns apologetically when Nitori flinches, presses soothing strokes down his nape with his fingers. “I’m worried about you.”

“It’s okay,” Nitori promises, and he can’t hold back the yawn that seems to attack him unexpectedly. “I turned it in on time.”

Rin takes him by either side of his face, tilts his head so he can kiss his forehead down the bridge of his nose. When his eyes shut, Rin kisses his lids, his favorite thing to do.  _“You’re so soft there, it’s like kissing baby mice,”_  Rin had said, which Nitori thought was horribly strange and so painfully adorable.

“What do you want to do?” Rin asks quietly, clearly expecting him to say 'bed'.

Nitori thinks of back rubs and sleep, his body still feels like a floating bag of jumbled thoughts, and then he notices Rin’s hair is a little crisp from chlorine.

“Shower,” he mumbles, and then grins sleepily because the thought of Rin naked and wet always seems to make him the happiest. Rin only scoffs, though it’s an affectionate sound.

Rin undresses him slowly on the small bathmat in front of the shower, peeling layers of clothes like petals from a flower, all delicate touches and gentle handling. Nitori has only been awake for a grand total of five hours, but he could quite happily slip back into slumber, so the shower is a welcome attempt at keeping him awake.

Except it only seems to relax him further. Rin’s warm chest encompassing his back, his arms wet and their skin slick where they’re touching. Rin presses his face to Nitori’s damp neck and moans softly when Nitori starts to gently roll his hips backwards. It’s amusing to Nitori how he can feel like he’s lost the use of all of his limbs, and Rin is _still_  the weaker one when he wants Nitori’s body like this, all wet and smothered in heat.

“I thought you were tired,” Rin says- or whimpers, rather.

“I am,” Nitori says, and then whines when Rin’s erection fits between his thighs like it belongs there, without any help from hands, just blindly aroused guidance. “So wake me up.”

It isn’t even morning, but Nitori imagines this is what it will be like next year - waking up with the sun, the chill of the apartment making the hot shower steam the entire bathroom. Rin’s skin smelling like sleep and sex, his arms sliding around Nitori’s body, wet and warm. To be able to do this every morning if they wanted, to have Rin there to make sure Nitori doesn’t sleep for more than a day - or even to make sure he sleeps to begin with - it’s most of the reason Nitori is trying so hard to graduate. Rin asked him to move in with him once he did.

“Are you even sober right now?” Rin asks warily, despite the incessant push of Nitori’s body, writhing against his. “What did that kid give you?”

“Benzo-something, I don’t know. I’m fine now, I think my body is just trying to catch up.”

Rin licks over Nitori’s calming pulse and then laughs when he whimpers. He reaches down to cup Nitori’s balls and then presses his fingers to the soft patch of skin beneath them, just  _there_ , the way that always gets Nitori to whine  _“ah, Rin!”_

This time is no different. If anything, Nitori wants it more. He wants Rin to get desperate the way he sometimes does, the way he gets where he says things that make Nitori’s cheeks burn and his cock pulse. It’s only because he’s still half delirious that he speaks up and says, “tell me how hard you’re gonna fuck me.”

Rin grunts like he’s wounded, and then maneuvers them both so that Nitori can press up against the wall of the shower, his trembling fingers curled into fists against the tiles above his head, water cascading down the curve of his back. Rin dips his head down, noses at Nitori’s hairline, and then nibbles on the lobe of his ear before he says, “I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll feel it for days. So wide open on me, so full of my cock, you’ll think about it when you can’t sleep. Want me to make you dirty, huh? Want my come in you?”

Nitori lets out a dry sob and on the second nod of “yes,  _ugh_ , yes,” he lets his head fall back onto Rin’s shoulder. Rin works a hand between them, uses some of his expensive hair conditioner and slips a finger into Nitori with an agonizingly slow burn. By the time he’s pushing in further, curling his fingers while Nitori arches his back, Nitori is far beyond fucking himself down on his hand in shameless twists of his hips, desperate for the burn Rin’s quiet voice murmured in promise.

Rin slicks up his cock and slides in, and then has to use his elbow to steady himself on the wall by Nitori’s fists because his hand is too slippery from the conditioner. Nitori is grunting breathily everytime he pushes back, meeting every hollow thud of Rin’s hips against his ass with an unconscious assent of pleasure. Rin can’t seem to move his face from his neck now, sucking and licking all the water away, and it’s an oddly satisfying thrill to watch the damp tendrils of red hair mesh with his own, to see them trail droplets of water down past his own collarbone, like they aren’t even two separate people anymore.

Nitori knows Rin is close when he bites the water-softened skin of his neck, when he starts pushing so hard forward that Nitori’s full weight is held up by him, his own cock so full it aches, his orgasm a distant tease. He's half smashed into the wall now, completely pressed against it, and Rin keeps pushing, gripping Nitori’s hair and exposing his throat to the scrape of his teeth. He has time for choppy breaths and then inbetween he babbles out incoherent strings of,  _“Ai, fuck, so good, you’re so fucking tight for me, fuck, all for me.”_

All Nitori can say is  _“yes”_  when Rin announces he’s going to come, and then Rin barely touches him with his still conditioner-slicked hand and his orgasm hits him like a tsunami, a crash of pleasure that leaves him short of breath and more than a little disoriented. His vision even almost whites out, and when Rin’s softening cock slips from his ass, that familiar bone-deep exhaustion makes him fumble backwards. Rin catches him, cursing under his breath, and when Nitori glances backwards and up at him all he can think to feel is guilt- Rin looks so  _worried_.

“I’m okay,” he says, and then Rin is dragging him out and wrapping him in a towel, back-walking him to his mattress.

Later, Rin chides him for being hasty in taking pills when he should have come to Rin for help, let Rin fix him. It’s cute, the way he does this - the way he thinks he could fix all of Nitori’s problems if he gave him the chance to. Maybe next year they’ll both see if it’s as easy as it sounds.

“Fuck that kid,” he mumbles, stroking the freshly dried bangs of Nitori’s hair away from his eyes, sweeping it to the side. “He could have killed you.”

Nitori snorts. “No he couldn’t, it was only one. And I wanted it.”

Rin huffs angrily, and then relents by pressing his face back to Nitori’s neck, burrowing down under the covers until it seems like he’s the shorter one. Nitori threads his fingers through the damp hair at Rin’s nape and sighs happily. Falling asleep this time feels organic and real, and maybe Rin really  _can_  fix everything, in his own way.


	4. biting/marking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anonymous asked:  
> Would you please do a thing with Rin biting Nitori? Like I honestly don't even care about the context or how you do it, just Rin giving Nitori lovebits because it's cliched and trashy and I love it."
> 
> rin/nitori | more of that future/college!au, or at least something like it | warnings for biting, bruising/marking | rated r-ish??

It was never much of a thing for Nitori - at least it never was until Rin came along. Biting and being bitten, it seemed like a glossy interest, something that only looked good in photographs. He used to give lovebites to himself just to see- would suck on the soft, delicate skin on the inside of his wrist until it turned an almost scary shade of red. They never hurt afterward, only if he pressed on them, his skin paperthin and fluttering beneath a frantic pulse. It was a rush that felt like nothing until he sucked hard enough for that blood-sting, that one that takes you by surprise when you’re not used to it.

The thought of someone else doing it to him just wasn’t on the cards. Until Rin.

Rin calls his teeth sharp -  _“like a shark’s,”_  he’d say - though they’re really just endearingly crooked, with the canines sticking out at a harsh angle. He looks more vampiric than shark-like to Nitori, not like it makes a difference either way. His smile is equally as dangerous in its devastation.

When Rin started kissing Nitori, it was one of the first things he thought of. Rin would blush and say  _“for practice,”_  and Nitori kind of hated the idea of that, even though he knew it wasn’t true. Rin has dropped the act now, and kisses Nitori like he wants it, but he’s so gentle - surprisingly so, Nitori doesn’t think he’d have it in him to bite.

So, he decides to try something out. For the first time since he was a curious young boy, Nitori sucks on the underside of his wrist, right below his pulse. He muffles a yelp into his own skin when the sharp flush of blood hits the mark, and then pulls back to admire it. If he squints he can see the vague shape of his mouth, and then he shakes his head to dispel the thought of what Rin’s marks would look like on his skin, and how badly he’s decided he wants them there.

Rin notices, of course. He’s become infinitely more perceptive since leaving school, so much more aware of himself and his surroundings. So it takes a grand total of two seconds for him to snatch Nitori’s wrist the next time he goes to his apartment to visit, and barks out a tightly wound, “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a love bite,” Nitori responds with bright interest, his nervous system perking up at the way Rin’s blunt fingernails dig white little crescent moon shapes into his arm where he’s holding him there. “Or a hickey, depending on who you ask.”

“Who gave it to you?” Rin practically growls, staring at the bruise on Nitori’s arm like it’s a separate entity that’s latched itself to Nitori, the  _thing_  that marked him.

“I did,” Nitori says, and he grins a little wickedly when Rin goes all soft and looks at him like he just said the sky was falling.

“You… did?”

Nitori nods, and then it’s like someone shifts a gear in Rin, he loosens his grip and cradles Nitori’s forearm like a baby, lifts the back of his wrist to his mouth to gently kiss the bruise there.

“Does it hurt?” Rin mumbles.

Nitori shakes his head. “I wanted one from you,” he says, and the pulse of silence within the room seems to cover them both like a blanket. Rin’s eyes get heavy and dark, his pupils fattening as he looks from Nitori’s eyes, to his mouth, to his wrist. Nitori lifts his, now trembling, hand to Rin’s mouth and tugs on his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, exposing the very tips of the sharpest bits of his teeth.

Rin huffs a breath out of his nose, and then licks Nitori’s thumb into place so he can gently drag his teeth over it. Nitori pulls back his hand with a shaky breath, and says, “I want your marks on me.”

This seems to set Rin off, and he collapses onto Nitori in the way he usually does when he gets overwhelmed by him - clinging to his shoulders and whimpering as he presses his face to his neck. He licks Nitori there, just behind and below his ear, and then mumbles out a muffled, “Where should I do it?”

“Anywhere,” Nitori says, a shiver trickling down his spine at the feel of Rin’s stuttered breath against the damp patch of skin he licked.

Rin pulls back suddenly, holding Nitori’s face close, and then very seriously says, “Do you want people to actually see it, or not?”

Nitori shrugs, suddenly inexplicably nervous, the words dying in his throat. If Rin thinks he’s hurting him, he doesn’t want to do it, so he dodges the question and veers the question onto potential food for dinner, and it’s almost as if they forget about it.

 

Later though, while Nitori lays fucked-out on Rin’s mattress, resting on his stomach with his face smashed into the corner of a pillow, he thinks about it again. There must be some sort of telepathic connection there, because Rin starts tugging at Nitori’s hips, pulls him back up onto his wobbly knees and then says, “You want this, don’t you?” with his mouth hovering inches away from the crease where thigh meets ass.

Nitori instinctively jerks his hips towards Rin, and then when Rin bites on the soft curve of his ass, he finally  _gets_  it. It isn’t about hurting or bruising, or even marking - it’s the rush of letting someone close enough to hurt you and trusting that they won’t. Rin even bites until it stings, and then sucks around the teeth marks until Nitori shouts into the pillow. Rin pulls away, licks at the soft, sore skin on his upper thigh, and Nitori laughs like he’s high because it feels like he’s about to float the fuck away any second.

“Did I hurt you?” Rin asks, and then lowers Nitori’s trembling hips to the mattress before kissing a small little circle around the mark he just made, coming close enough to his used hole to get his cock filling up again.

“No,” Nitori says, and then laughs again, more breath than noise. Rin kisses his way up his back, licks in between the bumps of his spine, and then bites gently, playfully, on the curve of his ear.

“Is this your way of wanting to feel like you’re mine or something?” Rin asks, and Nitori doesn’t have to look to know he’s grinning.

“No,” he says, and he means it. He doesn’t need a mark for that, and Rin knows it. “Maybe I just like your tongue that close to my ass.”

Rin groans, and Nitori can feel the heat from his cheeks. He takes Rin’s palm and turns his own head so it’s less smashed into the pillow, kissing right where his palm meets wrist. Rin’s breathing stutters like he’s bracing himself for pain, so Nitori only licks there and nibbles a little. There have been marks for years, ones that even they can’t see, but Nitori knows they’re there.

Still, the small little burn of dull pain that sits at the top of his thigh is a nice, warm reminder - Rin’s mouth was here.


	5. body shots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anonymous asked:  
> actually hell with it, make that a prompt, if you're still doing them. rin doing tequila belly shots off ai."
> 
> rin/nitori | future/college au where they are both in separate, yet close, universities | sort of vaguely combining with another anon prompt of ‘rintori with rin as a submissive top’ | warnings for alcohol consumption, drunken sex, hotel hookups, almost-public sexual display, etc | rated ofc

It’s one of the weekends where they decide to hang out on Ai’s campus, the summer dragging closer in waves of heat, the promising pull of a cold pool to dive in like an oasis in the distance. Ai isn’t as interested in swimming as he used to be, not now that he has Rin’s full attention, but it’s okay - Rin doesn’t mind.

What he does kind of mind is how much of a party school this is. Ai picked a university close to Rin, only a short train ride away, and Rin sometimes wonders if he couldn’t have gotten accepted somewhere better. His own university is very focused on extracurriculars, which suits him, but it’s also got high standards. Not to say Ai isn’t smart, he works harder than anyone Rin’s ever known, even himself, but Rin has a sinking feeling Ai settled for something less than average just to stay as close to him as possible.

But that’s moot at the moment, for tonight is Rin’s first chance to meet Ai’s new friends. Rin is a little nervous, because they’re all girls, and Rin’s main female interactions come from his sister - who can be very judgmental of outsiders at the best of times. The only one Rin hears about the most is Mai, who seems to be Ai’s closest friend here.

He walks through the entrance, having to pay cover for not being a student on this campus, and then meets Ai towards the back. There’s a girl hanging off his shoulder, short hair in ringlets that make her head look large in comparison to her tiny body. There’s other girls surrounding them too, but this one is obviously Mai.

“You made it!” Ai beams, as if Rin hasn’t been stressing about this particular night the whole week, as if it was never set in stone.

Rin only grins, nodding and looking anxiously at the girl still draped on Ai’s shoulder. Ai has sprouted up a bit, still shorter than most boys his age, but this girl makes him look tall. She introduces herself as Mai, as expected, and Ai keeps glancing between them with this ridiculous beaming pride that makes Rin feel almost unworthy of the attention.

Rin buys the girls, and Ai, a round of drinks, and all the girls call him a gentleman, a sweetheart, a _real man_. Ai’s cheeks redden progressively as the night goes on - whether from the liquor, or from being embarrassed at his friends brashly suggestive nature towards Rin, Rin isn’t quite sure.

It’s fun, though, and Mai even pulls Rin to the side when Ai skips off to the bathroom, gives him the scolding best friend talk - which would be a little insulting, seeing as Rin’s known him for much longer, if she weren’t so blearily stern about Rin keeping Ai happy, about not hurting him. Rin only laughs, fixes one of her flattening curls, and says, “I don’t plan on it.”

When Ai returns he gazes suspiciously at Mai, like he knows what she said, but any pending confrontation is interrupted by one of the louder girls proclaiming, “Body shots!”

Rin laughs nervously, only turns into more of a coughing choke when Ai immediately jumps up, holding his hand in the air like an eager schoolkid, and saying “Oh, me, me!”

Mai is already staring at him with a smirk when Rin glances to her for some kind of help, as if she’d do the honor instead of him. He’s more nervous because he’s not sure if this is the kind of thing Ai will be embarrassed about tomorrow or not. He’s usually pretty shameless, but Rin is still getting used to this new Ai - the one that’s crawled so far out of his shell he’s almost in the nude, the one that knows what he wants and takes it now.

The bartender drops a tray of tequila in clear shot glasses, accompanied by a small plate of lime slices and a salt shaker. Rin doesn’t really know what the fuck he’s doing, so he takes Ai’s hand, licks the back of it and then sprinkles salt over it. Ai is grinning like a kid in a candy store, but Mai looks unimpressed. Rin hands a slice of lime to Ai, then licks the back of his hand, takes the shot from the glass, and bites the lime delicately away from his fingers. Ai’s pupils fatten, in that way he gets when it’s like the only thing he can see is Rin, and Rin laughs a little under his breath - it’s still so easy to rile him up.

“That’s not a body shot!” The larger girl yells, and Mai nods her agreeance.

Rin rolls his eyes, expecting this, but Ai only looks bewildered as he’s pushed aside so that Mai can hop up on the bar. She lays down on her back, and the larger girl (Emi, Rin thinks is her name. She has colored extensions threaded into her hair, it makes her look almost younger than Gou) immediately leans in to lick at Mai’s neck. Ai gasps and grips Rin’s bicep, watching with rapt attention as she sprinkles the salt over the wet patch of skin.

She then places a slice of lime in Mai’s mouth, who holds it carefully between her teeth, and then lifts Mai’s shirt to pour what she can fit of a tequila shot in the dip of her bellybutton. Rin watches in mild amusement, looking more at Ai, who looks like he’s found God, staring at the girls the way that children might look at statues of dinosaurs, something huge and unfathomable. Emi licks the salt off of Mai’s neck, then slurps the tequila out of her belly button, and then rather obscenely bites the lime away from her lips.

Ai tugs on Rin’s shoulder, making him lean down as Ai stands up on his tiptoes to whisper-yell in his ear, “Will you do that to me? Just like that.”

The eager press of Ai’s body against his side is enough for him to agree, and Mai is staring at them expectantly anyway, after she hops off the bar. Rin isn’t letting Ai climb up on the bar though, so he takes them near the back where there’s a low sitting table for him to lie back on, something a little more private. When Rin carefully, slowly, pushes Ai’s shirt up to bunch under his armpits, only barely covering his nipples, his palms open on Ai’s sides, Emi looks like she might faint. Mai just looks smugly satisfied, like this is her doing - as if Rin hasn’t touched Ai like this a hundred times before.

Ai squirms beneath Rin, his knees bent on the table and parting to accommodate Rin leaning over him. His tiny, multicolored shorts slide up his thighs, and Rin’s breathing becomes more labored at the sight of him so open and waiting, even with an audience behind them. Not like anyone else in the bar could see - the girls have created a sort of wall, all watching with nervous energy.

Rin mimics Emi’s technique - he licks Ai’s neck, which has him squirming already. Rin tells him to “shh,” which only makes Ai moan, quietly enough to only be heard by him. Rin’s hands shake as he sprinkles salt over the trail of his tongue, but no one seems to notice. He puts the lime in Ai’s mouth, then pours the tequila into his exposed belly button, which overflows a little, drips of clear liquid spilling down and over the side of his stomach. Rin’s blood ignites at the sight, but he’s distracted by the sudden aggressive surge forward from the girls, each of them eager to watch.

Rin tugs on Ai’s knees, slides him down the table a little so he can reach his neck easier. He licks the salt from his damp skin, tasting the thump of Ai’s pulse, and then slides down to his bellybutton. He licks the liquid delicately, like a cat lapping up milk, trailing a little around the edges to clean some of the spill. He then carefully bites the lime out of Ai’s mouth, sucking on it and then grinning over the tight sourness and then burn of the liquor at Ai’s openly dazed face. The girls behind them are practically shrieking, and it only makes Rin laugh.

In a way, Rin is sort of glad for the wall of females to keep what they just did private. Not so much out of embarrassment for himself, but more that he’s nervous the local people might not approve. Since it’s Ai’s school, he’s the only who would get shit for it - he already hangs out with a group of girls.

By the time he’s standing up and tugging Ai’s shirt down over his belly, Rin feels ten times more unsteady - drunk off the heat of Ai’s body more than the liquor. The way his stomach sucked in and then fluttered against the press of his tongue, the way he gasped and opened his legs even wider. It took a heroic amount of effort not to kiss down from his belly button, because of the added privacy back here, and the girls were so into it, he thinks they might have even enjoyed the show.

The more Rin thinks about it, the more he realizes they can’t stay here. He can’t even look at Ai’s heavily lidded eyes without his cock twitching in his jeans. They have to go somewhere. Ai’s roommate is a stuffy math major who is going out of town, but not until tomorrow. Rin had planned on taking it easy tonight, to wait until they had his dorm to themselves, but he can’t now.

Some of the girls start to head back to their respective dorms, and Rin takes this as their easy out. He tugs Ai out, who seems too distracted to really give his usually enthusiastic goodbyes to the girls, and then drags him by the wrist to a skeazy looking hotel right on the corner of the high street, the peeling teal paint of the front door surrounded by uneven cobblestones and wandering students.

He doesn’t even have it in him to feel shame - not when Ai shifts his hand so that he can thread his fingers through Rin’s, not when Ai bounces on the balls of his feet with nervous excitement when the man at the front desk turns to grab their room key for them.

When they get to their room and get settled, Rin adjusting the rickety old a/c unit so it cools down a little, feels less sticky, Ai is already being ridiculous.

“Taking me to hotels now, huh?” he asks suggestively, his feet sort of daintily pointed together as he leans towards Rin, trying to catch his attention, as if it hasn’t been on him the whole night.

“Would you honestly have wanted to go back to your dorm with your roommate in there?” Rin asks, grunting as he finally gets the a/c unit to blast to life.

“No,” Ai says, and then he stumbles as he walks to the bed, flopping down on it and kicking off his shoes. “I’m just trying to decide if this makes me a cheap fuck or a high class pickup.”

When Rin turns, the zip on Ai’s shorts are undone, and he spreads his legs again, leaning back on his palms, when he catches Rin staring. “It makes you my boyfriend, idiot, and based on my funds, this isn’t cheap,” Rin says, careful to keep his tone gently fond instead of annoyed, so Ai knows that he’d spend every last penny on him, if he had to.

Ai pushes his hips out a little, and Rin’s mouth gets wet at the sight - the obvious bulge that he can see the tip of. Ai isn’t one for layering, ever, especially not in summer. No socks, no underwear - so it makes the pale V of skin exposed that much more enticing in invitation.

“Did you wanna suck me off in that bar?” Ai whispers. “In front of everyone like that?”

Rin chokes a little, and suddenly the a/c doesn’t feel nearly low enough, but he manages to say, “Yes.”

“I wanted it too,” Ai grins.

“I know you did,” Rin says, thinking of the way Ai parted his thighs, the way he arched into Rin’s mouth, quite literally put on a platter for him to eat up.

The dark heat in Rin’s voice sets Ai off, and he’s taking off his shirt and then standing to tug Rin until he falls backwards to the bed. Rin lays back in something like awe, all as Ai slides out of his shorts and then tugs down Rin’s jeans and boxers. Ai climbs over him on all fours, leaning down to lick at his neck, as if Rin had the salt put there and he’s tasting for traces left behind.

“Are you too drunk for this?” Rin asks tightly, because he always asks.

“No.”

Ai pulls back, and then shoves Rin’s tank top up his chest, bunches it under his arms the way he did to Ai back at the bar, only this time he pulls it up over his nipples. He scoots down then, licks softly into Rin’s belly button, which chokes a groan out of him, his cock filling rapidly.

Ai hops off the bed quickly to grab his shorts, and then procures a small packet of lube from the pockets, which makes Rin wonder if he didn’t plan this all along, if he didn’t specifically choose a bar closest to where all the nightly hotels are situated. He places his hands on Rin’s ribcage, and then with some careful maneuvering, and the help of a few slickened fingers, he sinks down onto Rin’s cock with a long-suffering sigh, like waiting a week for this is torture - which Rin might be tempted to agree with.

Rin instinctively reaches up to grip at Ai’s sides, panting out soft  _haah_ ’s with the almost expert way Ai bounces in his lap, rolls his hips on every push down. Ai just exudes these breathy little grunts, hungrily desperate sounds, like he doesn’t ever want to know what anything else feels like but this. Rin’s toes curl against the edge of the bed where he can barely get a grip to give him some kind of control - he’s stuck there, laid out beneath Ai in quiet surrender.

He always seems to get oddly sentimental when he lets Ai do the work, when he’s so overcome by the heat of him and given the chance to think about it, to take it all in. Ai is so good at taking care of him now, of knowing what he needs as well as what he wants, so it comes in a half drunken, half worshiping slur when he says, “I’m so in love with your body.”

Ai whimpers a little, the sound turning into a giggle when he’s seated on Rin’s cock, his hips rolling in tight circles. He pushes away from Rin’s ribs and leans back, lifting his hips up and outward, so that Rin can see where they’re joined, where Ai’s pink hole stretches around him, pulling him in.

“I think my body is in love with you too,” Ai says with a blissed out grin, keeping that stretched backward position and rolling his body in waves, giving Rin an explicit view that ends up making his neck ache with how hard he’s straining his head up to see.

Rin comes with a long, drawn out groan when Ai’s cock starts to drip, a clear bead of precome sliding down the length of him. Ai sits forward a bit, not letting Rin slip out of him, beating off rapidly until he’s spilling all over Rin’s stomach and moaning in that clipped way he does when his entire body tenses in pleasure.

Ai ends up slumping off to the side, Rin slipping wetly out of him, as Ai adjusts himself onto his side. He nuzzles his nose into Rin’s warm shoulder, and then blindly reaches for the box of tissues on the table near the bed. He grabs it, tosses it at Rin, and watches almost fondly as Rin cleans off his stomach.

“I should’ve licked it off,” Ai mumbles, with this tiny concentrated frown. It makes Rin a little crazy - how he can be so innocently cute while saying or insinuating such obscene things. He ends up rolling Ai over until he’s on his back, crawling over him to lick into his belly button again, tasting the faint remnants of the tequila on his skin.

“I can still taste it, a little,” Rin mutters, kissing in small circles around Ai’s belly, trailing low enough that his slightly damp, spent cock presses into the underside of his chin.

“You were very… kitten-ish when you were licking me,” Ai giggles.

Rin looks up at him with a steady glare. “If I had done it any other way, we would’ve had problems.”

Ai seems to agree, and then curls under the scratchy sheets, pulling Rin along with him. He pushes his back to Rin’s chest, a careful fit, like Ai is something soft that needs protecting, and Rin is his shield. It isn’t true, not in reality, but it’s nice to feel like he could keep him safe, if he had to.

“Mai loved you,” Ai mumbles sleepily.

“She loves you a hell of a lot more,” Rin grunts.

“But I love you the most.”

He says it, even though he doesn’t have to. Rin licks the back of Ai’s neck, whispers quiet promises into his hair. Maybe he picked the right school after all, Rin selfishly allows himself to think.


	6. top ai with small dick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anonymous asked:  
> NITORI FUCKING RIN WITH HIS SMALL DICK PLEASE I NEED"
> 
> rin/nitori | older au, i guess | warnings for fingering, barebacking, minor D/s themes, maybe? etc etc etc etc | rated ofc

Rin feels like a star that’s dying - a collapse in reverse, the slow implode before the cosmic explode, pulled apart into a million tiny pieces. His pillow is soaked in tears and spit, and he clutches it to his face like a shield, like what’s left of his elemental being will float away if he doesn’t have an anchor, full of helium.

Ai’s fingers stroke the inside of him, coaxing these throat tearing moans. He curls his fingers forward, presses buttons Rin hadn’t even known existed before. Ai leans down to kiss the dimples on his lower back as his hand works inside of him, muttering against his spine how good he feels, how hot and tight, how he’s leaking already just thinking about being inside him.

He has this way of pulling Rin apart, piece by quivering piece. With his slick fingers, with his open mouth, with the way he unconsciously straddles the back of Rin’s knee, presses his dick into his thigh enough to get a sticky wet trail there.

When Ai pulls away, Rin dry sobs into the pillow, overstimulated and desperate, his hole clenching around the empty ache of nothing. Ai pushes down between his shoulders with an open palm, presses his face even deeper into the fabric. He trails his hand down his spine, maps out every ridge of bone and muscle, and then laughs, breathy and delirious, when Rin pushes his ass back, hungry to be full.

“You want it so bad,” Ai says in awe, and all Rin can do is grunt. In frustration, or just his fucked-out way of saying ‘yes’, Rin isn’t quite sure himself.

Ai doesn’t torture him any longer, only lines up and slides right in, in one slick, wet push. Rin breathes out a tense  _ah!_  and clenches, the feel of Ai pushed to the root setting his nerve endings on fire. His cock barely reaches as deep as his fingers, but it’s thicker than them, hotter and infinitely more organic. It’s such an instant comfort, the perfect fit to press an urgent need, that Rin sobs in relief, his voice breaking when Ai starts to thrust forward, the sharp sting of his bony hips slapping Rin’s thighs being the only thing that hurts.

Rin reaches a hand back, grips the fat of Ai’s backside hard enough to leave fingerprint shaped bruises, pulling him into him as deep as he’ll go. Ai collapses his weight onto Rin’s back, licks up his spine almost animalistically, like Rin is his marked mate. Rin only has one arm to hold onto the pillow that cushions his face, his other arm still gripping Ai’s flesh, his shoulder blades jutting out like clipped wings.

Ai murmurs a soft, “Gonna come,” and Rin begs for it -  _please, yes, Ai_.

Ai ends up placing a hand over Rin’s nape, thrusting in a desperate sort of way, with the kind of vigor that reminds Rin of being a teenager - only just having learned how good it feels to jerk off, until you’ve rubbed yourself raw.

He shouts when he comes, a soft but powerful little sound, as he pumps Rin full of his come, the warmth of it something Rin can swear he feels. Ai slips out of him easily, and Rin falls bonelessly down, shivering like a storm, whiplashed by forces beyond his control and not steady enough to attempt to stand.

Ai runs his hand over the cleft of Rin’s ass, smears his own come as it trickles out of him. He leans up over the side of Rin’s flattened body, carefully pushing his fingers back inside. Ai handles Rin post coitally the way a sculptor might work on wet clay - with delicate accuracy, just enough force to mold your piece the way you need it.

Rin ends up humping the mattress, feeling almost whorish in a good way, desperate for any kind of friction on his cock now, his ass open and wet. Ai moves to straddle him again, and it’s the feel of his damp cock pushing against Rin’s ass, the half-softness of it, that has Rin groaning and spilling all over the sheets.

Ai kisses the back of his neck, tucks him under the cleaner parts of the sheets, pets his hair. He mumbles sleepily about how good he felt, how perfect he is. Rin can only deliriously hum, hoping that Ai gets it - that he’s just as perfect, that it’s not too much or too little, that the feel of his modest little cock sitting snug inside of him makes his entire body feel like it’s ignited, like he’s burning, exploding - all in the best of ways.

He doesn’t say it, he can’t. His tongue is thick and heavy, and words left him a long time ago. But he thinks Ai gets it, he really does.


	7. rough sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt: "for rintori prompt: kind of an inverse of a previous fic you wrote - rin assumes ai wants to make sweet, sweet love, for he is a tiny fragile flower. but just for once, ai wants to be fucked hard against the wall."
> 
> rin/ai | could be au or not au, up to you | warnings for painplay, vague/minor mentions of bloodplay, biting, dirty talk, hair pulling, rough sex, etc | nc177777777

Ai is getting a little frustrated now.

It isn’t to say his relationship with Rin is  _bad_  - it’s anything but. Rin showers him in kisses, and gives him all his sweets, and lets him borrow his tshirts so he can smell him when he goes to sleep. He’s the perfect boyfriend, and Ai would never think of complaining, it’s just…  _something_  is missing.

Rin has that kind of face - the kind of face that makes you think he hates the world when he isn’t smiling, the kind of snarled glare that makes him seem like a wild animal, an unhinged jaw ready to rip you to shreds. He’s strong too, so it’s the combination of the two and the fact that Rin treats Ai like he’s made of blown glass that gets Ai frustrated.

The sex isn’t unsatisfying, either. Rin can still make him come five, ten times in a night if he’s wound up enough, Rin’s fingers and his tongue opening up his body like a prize, something to worship and work at until you win.

But tonight- tonight Ai is feeling brave. Brave and intensely horny, which seems like a bad combination, or at least a risky one. Ai has been dizzyingly hard, ever since Rin slipped a hand down the back of his shorts discretely before leaving him for class in the morning, pressing his finger hard enough to graze the recently used pink of his hole in something like a twisted promise, his grin turning almost childish in glee when Ai moaned under his breath.

It’s been all fucking day, and Ai is about to lose his mind, and he just - he doesn’t know how to  _ask_  for it.

“Wait,” Ai chokes out, grunting as Rin’s hot tongue continues to lave over his nipple, sensitive after the repeated attention, the tip softly pink and peaked beneath his lips.

Rin pulls back, looking somewhat worried. “Everything okay?”

Ai nods, and then sits up slowly, hating the way Rin’s frown deepens as he pushes him back. As a sort of muted apology, Ai sits in Rin’s lap, plays with the rough regrowth of hair just below his belly button.

“Ai,” Rin pleads, tilting his chin up so he stops looking down at their laps. “Talk to me.”

It feels a little wrong to do it like this - to let himself be this far gone, to make Rin worry. His nipples are turning stiff, pleasantly sore, the air in the room cooling over Rin’s spit. He whines a little, pushes the leaking tip of his dick into Rin’s stomach.

“I want it,” he says, almost whispering, pulling Rin’s hand currently resting on his lower back town to his backside, pushing the way Rin did on his own earlier, “Since this morning, you made me want it  _so bad_.”

“You want me inside you?” Rin asks, his voice so full of reverent amazement, licking the corner of Ai’s mouth like he can’t believe he’s real, can’t believe he’s allowed to taste and touch him like this.

“More than that,” Ai chokes out, turning and then slowly, carefully, biting down on the fat of Rin’s lower lip.

Except he doesn’t stop. He tightens his jaw until it shakes, frustration causing him to nearly draw blood, only relenting when Rin grunts in surprise, and maybe a little pain. Ai is instantly apologizing, his cheeks filling with ashamed rushes of blood. It’s only worse because Ai’s thought about it so many times before, the sharp edges of Rin’s teeth puncturing skin, his tongue soaked in the metallic tinge of Ai’s blood.

“I’m sorry,  _god_ , sorry-”

“Hey,” Rin says, nudging Ai’s face until he looks at him, “More than what? Talk to me.”

Ai only closes his eyes because it’s easier, despite the frustrated sigh Rin lets go of when he refuses to look at him. He can only whisper, the shame in him enough to make it a quiet admission, and he pleads, “Please, I want you to fuck me this time, until I can’t walk. Sometimes I come pretending you’re biting me, pretending it hurts. I want it to hurt, Rin-senpai.”

Rin inhales sharply, and Ai slowly, carefully opens his eyes to look. It looks like Rin’s been sucker punched in the gut, like someone knocked the wind out of him. His eyes go all heavy and glazed over, his voice a deep hum as he asks, “Do you really want that?”

“Yes,” Ai whimpers, and then yelps when Rin throws him backwards, pinning him to the mattress.

Rin presses his face into the side of Ai’s, so he can’t see him but he can feel the force of it, like he’s holding himself back, or asking Ai to. The pressure of it, plus the heated, heavy huffs of his breath against his ear, makes Ai’s cock jump, the sticky tip of it smearing against Rin’s stomach.

“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, okay?” Rin says, his voice thick and reedy, desperate sounding.

Ai just whines and nods, pushing his dick into Rin’s stomach again, so hard for it it aches, his groin pulsing.

He’s expecting more of a gradual ease, but what he gets instead is Rin tugging him up with a firm grip on his bicep, shoving him off the bed until he’s stumbling toward the dresser. Ai must look stunned enough to make Rin seem unsure, wavering a little beneath deep, heaving breaths as Ai stands there, bewildered. He doesn’t want to lose this, though, isn’t ready to let this slip through the cracks, so instead of telling Rin he’s okay, that he liked that, he turns and presses his forearms against the wall, his hands curled into loose fists.

Putting his ass on display is like flipping some kind of switch, Rin grunting like he’s in pain, and then surging forward to press Ai against the wall. Ai moans, feeling slutty, arching his back so his ass sticks out farther. Rin puts grips around the back of Ai's neck, squeezes, and then spits on his other hand. He fucks Ai with two fingers, the spit only just helping to ease into the slickness leftover from barely an hour ago. Rin is so good at this, just the right amount of aggression and care. When Rin mumbles a throaty, “Gonna fuck your pretty hole until it’s red, yeah, you like that?” Ai grins so stupidly against the cool plaster of the wall that he ends up drooling a little, unable to control it.

Rin seems to get himself too worked up, moans a little when he pulls his fingers all the way out to slowly push them back in, like he’s watching and hating that his dick isn’t in their place yet. He ends up pushing Ai against the wall with the full force of his chest, one hand still grappling at the back of Ai’s neck, teasing his hole and muttering in his ear, “You want this dick, look how wet you are for it, look at you.”

When he shoves himself in it’s hasty, hard and jarring. Rin makes an apologetic little whine at the cry Ai lets loose, and he has to bite his tongue to keep from telling him it’s good, keep doing it, more. It feels taboo to say it like that, like it’ll break the strange little spell they’ve wrapped around them, tear the atmosphere enough to have the tension leak right out of it.

Rin fucks him in short but powerful pushes, gradually gaining in speed, until Ai really  _is_  drooling against the wall, his mouth open on a seemingly continuous moan, his voice going hoarse with it. Rin’s hand on his neck moves to his hair, gripping and pulling his face away from the wall until his skull is lolling back on Rin’s shoulder, his muscles half dead from the overstimulation of Rin tugging on his hair, of Rin’s cock pulling him apart, fucking him so hard he thinks he can feel Rin’s dick poking into his stomach. He half-drunkenly looks down, expecting to see a little lump there against the skinny flat of his belly, but there’s nothing, just the muscle-deep shiver of pending orgasm.

It doesn’t last long, though Ai isn’t expecting it to. Rin goes all soft when he’s about to come - his hand gripping Ai’s hair more soothing, gentle scratches. He bites Ai’s neck, because he knows he wants it, but not hard enough to make him bleed. He’s too weak now, so close to spilling hot inside Ai, mouthing at the shell of Ai’s ear and telling him how good he feels, how tight, how wet, _you’re so fucking wet Ai, all for me, always._

Rin reaches around blindly, strokes the soft skin beneath his balls, and then Ai is making a mess of the wall, his dick twitching as his orgasm makes his knees buckle, his mouth open on a silent scream. Rin holds him up, and he must come at some unknown point shortly after, because his blunt nails are digging marks into Ai’s thighs, and he sobs into Ai’s neck, buries his face there until his hips stop stuttering, his whole body in quaking trembles.

Ai’s legs are stiff, his back aching, and his ass so sore, but such a deep, sated burn, one that he’s wanted since he can remember laying eyes on Rin. Rin carries him, almost bridal style, to the bed, and then pets his face, kisses his cheeks, damp from sweat and exerted tears. Ai manages to smile, laughing this giddy, breathy little noise, and then squeezes Rin’s hand when he hovers it over his pounding heart.

“You’re so perfect,” Ai says, his eyes still closed, his mouth set in a dopey, come-drunk grin. “So perfect, Rin-senpai.”

Rin nuzzles his neck, licks over his frantic pulse, and then pulls the sheets over them both. He kisses Ai’s face until he gets tired, then finally rests so that his nose touches Ai’s cheek.

“I’m glad you think so,” he mumbles.

It’s the best he could ask for, and feeling Rin’s slowly evening heartbeat on his arm as he fades to sleep trumps it all.


	8. post ep6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:  
> "AI MAKES ME REALLY UPSET i want all the good things for him because he is such a sweet soul. I know you have so many prompts but: ai feeling down and insecure because he feels like no matter how much he tries he'll really catch up, so rin takes the time to let me know how much he's loved and precious?"
> 
> spoilers for free s2 ep 6

“Ai.”

The boy looks up, turning to face the voice behind him. He looks tired, as he should, the ridges of his spine more pronounced where he sits slumped, the gradually developed muscles on his upper back at ease.

“Rin-senpai,” Ai says, and then goes back to kicking idly at the water, sitting on the edge of the pool. He’s resting his weight with elbows on his knees, staring down into the ripple his legs leave in their wake. “I know it’s after hours.”

He moves to stand, but Rin puts a hand on his shoulder, coaxes him back to sit. Rin takes the empty space next to him, rolls up his track bottoms and dips his toes in the water, the quiet slosh of it the only sound surrounding them.

“You did well. Everyone’s noticed you’ve improved, and that was all  _you_ , you know that right?”

Ai smiles, looking down at his lap. Rin dips his head to meet his eyes, but Ai won’t look up.

“It’s all thanks to you, Senpai. You motivated me.”

His voice is thick but weak, threaded with some kind of weighted emotion that makes Rin’s stomach feel like it’s plummeting down to the center of the earth, never to return.

“Ai,” Rin says, but Ai shakes his head, the same smile plastered on his face. It isn’t until Rin reaches out and tips up Ai’s chin to see the wet, glassy sheen of his eyes that he notices how hard he’s been taking it. He’s bitten his lips raw, his throat working over knots, like swallowing dry bread.

“I’m sorry,” Ai whispers, blinking just enough to have a tear slip down his cheek, and he’s still smiling. Ai tries to pull back when he feels it, when the wet trail hits Rin’s thumb on his jaw, but Rin doesn’t let him move.

“It’s okay to cry sometimes,” Rin says, flashes of a memory hitting him like the slow wash of low tide - he remembers feeling helpless, and alone, sitting by himself just like this.

“I’m not mad, I’m not.” Ai’s voice is so heavy it almost doesn’t come out right, like his throat is closing up, disallowing any form of speech. When he blinks up at Rin, finally willing to meet his eyes, they’re so wet it makes them seem lit up, small halos of light reflected from the fluorescence overhead. “I just. I really wanted to swim with you.”

When he smiles this time it looks painful, his face crumbling. Rin only jerks his chin up further, holds his head high, because if there’s anything else he needs to learn, it’s  _this_  - it’s being proud of himself.

“I wanted it too,” Rin says softly, his thumb stroking over the swell of Ai’s cheek, dampened by tears. “But you still can,” he adds, and his tilted half smile is as much full of hope as he thinks it needs to be - that Ai gets it, he usually does.

Ai’s eyes go wide, the fog in them clearing. “You’re not disappointed?”

Rin  _tsk_ ’s, pinching a little at Ai’s chin and then letting his hand drop. “I just told you, you did well, dummy. I’m proud of you.”

Ai nods quietly, the spreading watery smile this time infinitely more genuine. Ai is so easy to read sometimes, and Rin is grateful for it. He leans down and kisses the soft skin beside Ai’s nose, his lips catching the faint hint of salt from his tears.

Rin splashes him a little with his foot, nudges his shoulder when Ai continues to stare up at him like he’s made of stars, like Ai just realized he’s close enough to touch the sky. It still makes him embarrassed, sometimes - not because it’s Ai, but because he doesn’t feel worthy of it. Because  _Ai_  is the one made of stars, shining bright and burning with hope and determination. Because one day Ai will turn around and see that, all the while, people have been admiring  _him_  too - Rin included.

“I’ll still cheer you on, Senpai,” Ai says quietly, voice still water-logged from tears, but in a cheerful way now. He bites his lip, looking down at the waves their legs have made, and in the garbled reflection it looks like their ankles could be hooked together. Rin nudges his foot beneath the water just because he can.

“Good,” Rin says, and he leans in to whisper- “because I think we might need it.”

Ai flinches a little, giggling, and Rin pulls away, standing and holding out a hand.

“Let’s go,” he says, and Ai takes hold and follows.


	9. mer/sea creatures caught in a net

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tumblr anon prompt: "Could you write a rintori thing where they're both mermaids and one gets caught in a net and whatever happens next is up to you?"
> 
> \-----
> 
> rin/ai | mer/creature au | minor warnings for angst/mentions of blood  
> \--this is based off of the assumption that ai is most similar to a pilot fish, which im not sure is official or not (also weeps because if you search for images of pilotfish his little bubsy head pops up), and that rin is, of course, a shark. (also [this handy little fact about sharks](http://animals.pawnation.com/causes-shark-slide-trance-upside-down-11121.html) is kind if important to the story). i wish i was an artist, i feel like i could do this a lot more justice. i hope this is what you were looking for!
> 
> \-----

“stop following me.”

it started when they were young. when ai was nothing more than a persistent nuisance, when him tagging along felt more like carrying lead weights.

“no, i wont,” ai says, tugging on rin’s arm, steadfast in the way that rin thought might one day make him a good leader, someone worth following. “you’ll get yourself killed!”

rin turns in a flourish, cutting through the water with the stiff fins of his tail like a knife. it’s not as beautiful as ai’s - dull and grey, hard where his is soft. he looks like a menace, he’s heard others say. ai’s is too pretty, glittering scales and soft fins.

“they hurt her, they will pay,” rin bites, his face close to ai’s, sharp rows of teeth bared.

gou had come home with a gouge the size of a clam at her hip, her beautiful scales torn and bloody. rin feels the wound like poison in his own veins, has ever since.

“they’ll hurt you, too, please-”

ai tugs, but it’s no use. rin’s tail is stronger, faster. he shoots off through the darker depths, gaining distance with covered visibility. ai doesn’t give up though, never has, and he struggles to flutter at his side, keeping up the pace.

when they get to the harbour rin stays a safe depth beneath the surface, sharpening his eyes to watch for boats. ‘s. s. karka’ it had said. rin will find them if it kills him.

“what if they were just sailors? what if it was an accident, rin, please!”

ai swallows him up in a flurry, his tail long enough to wrap around rin’s body almost twice. his small, soft little hands grip his shoulders, his face turned into a painful looking frown.

he’s only looked like this once before. when they were little, and ai was lonely, he’d follow rin around. nagisa had teased rin about it, called him rin’s shadow, and sousuke had only ever looked quietly amused. rin only got tired of pretending he didn’t notice, snapped at ai, made his face crumble like collapsing coral. rin has always been told his edges were sharp, jagged, and to be careful with them. he didn’t know how easy it was to hurt until that moment, and he hadn’t even touched him.

it’s remembering this that has him taking ai’s face into his hands, pulling him until the water between their chests grows tepid, warming. cold blood has nothing on a beating heart.

“i have to,” he says to ai, softly, “i’ll be okay, promise.”

ai opens his mouth, his scowl turned fierce, ready to argue, but rin quiets him with the press of his lips, kisses him until his protective anger fades into a quiet whimper. rin only recently discovered how perfectly the heel of his palm fits in the small dip of ai’s lower back, where scales stretch into skin, and he pulls him in closer still, until there’s no water left between them.

the gills at ai’s neck flutter beneath rin’s fingers, his eyes heavy, subdued for now. rin runs his tongue over his teeth, dipping his head to kiss him again until he’s completely soft, but a shadow crossing over their heads has his head snapping back into focus, whipping towards the temporary cut of light.

“rin-”

“don't follow me,” rin commands, and then whips out of the coil ai’s tail had made around him.

“rin!”

.

.

the positive to being small is improved agility. while rin might have pure strength and speed, ai has quiet stealth, is careful enough to hover around larger things, ships included, without going noticed.

that’s all it was at first with rin - a quietly dangerous curiosity. “stay away from that one,” his mother had said, “he’s a killer.” all it seemed to do was add fuel to the fire, encourage ai’s childish wonder at the supposed beast. he was fierce in such a quiet way, and he was friends with one of the largest of their kind - an orca whale. ai was more afraid of the orca than rin, because rin still had the ability to look as lonely as he did, pulled in different directions by different groups of friends.

now rin has the drive of a warrior, the kind that could very well get him killed. ai had told him before, even, warned him that swimming so close to the surface could only mean trouble.

“but there’s another world out there,” rin had said, only just smaller than he is now, still young. ai was significantly smaller, a tiny thing that rin had taken to calling ‘cute’.

“a dangerous one,” ai had said gravely, and rin held the side of his neck in one palm, the size of it encompassing all the sensitive skin he had there at the time.

“gou has seen it. maybe one day we can have both.”

“we?” ai had asked, and rin huffed, only visibly embarrassed because ai knew his face well enough to see the tells - the shifty eyes, the tensed jaw.

“you know what i think of us,” rin said quietly, his head lowered, and ai’s tail had already long since begun its habit of wrapping around rin, this time slithering a coil down from around the shark’s waist.

ai whispered, “tell me again,” and rin had kissed him for the third time that day. ai never stopped counting.

.

.

rin is bolting so fast beneath the surface that he doesn’t feel it until he’s already come to from a blackout. he’d hit his head on metal, the hollow thunk echoing in the water around him.

there’s a beast descending on him, something dark, shrouding the light. it feels rough, like the talons of the birds gou told him about, and it’s turning rin, flipping him upwards.

the last thing he thinks before it all goes dark is that he’s glad ai isn’t here, that he finally stopped following him - though he still quietly cries out his name as if he wishes he had.

.

.

ai finds the karka easily. it’s a small thing, a fisherman's vessel. it’s docked alongside long planks of wood, and rin is nowhere to be found. ai instinctively panics, tastes it in the water - something’s wrong.

he skitters forward, tail whipping behind him. he’s too close to the surface himself, the same thing he always tells rin to stop doing, but his heart is pumping that dangerous kind of blood through his veins, the kind that makes rin do reckless things when he’s angry or hurt.

there is infinite space in the greenish tinge of the water, and ai can’t see him anywhere. he can’t feel him either, his lack of presence now so acute it feels like someone’s clipped his fins. panic eats away at his resolve, rendering his swimming hasty and uneven, and it feels like he’s going around in circles until he sees it.

off in the distance, caught in the mesh of a gigantic net. there are schools of smaller fish, all equally panicked, clouding around a long, dark looking form. ai doesn’t realize he’s screaming until he's already recognized what it is - rin, belly up, his head and arms hanging limp from his body.

“rin!”

he nearly crashes into the bulk of the net, grunting at the thick twine of the ropes, scraping the delicate skin of his hands as he tears at the holes he can reach. the fish trapped in with him are humming, the smaller ones escaping through the gaps where they can, but it's no use - the rope is too tough. ai reaches in to touch rin’s face, to try and wake him, at least. he’s stronger than this, he could upend the entire boat if he wanted to.

except he only just brushes the swaying tendrils of rin’s hair - he’s too far out of reach.

enraged and terrified, ai grips the bulk of the net in his shaking arms and swims down, as hard as he can. his heart feels like it might burst from his chest when he turns to look and sees that the boat hasn’t budged.

an engine rumbles to life, the boat moves. ai doesn’t even catch a glimpse of its name as it rumbles off, clouding the water with waves and foam. ai tries to follow but loses them in the clouded haze of fish and murk. it hits him like swallowing lead that rin might be strong, but this is the one thing ai could have done, he could have woken him up.

he should have followed him this time.

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when rin comes to it’s dark and everything stings. his skin feels tight, grainy and dry. he opens his mouth to humid air, panics when he gulps absolutely nothing down. he grips at his neck, choking, forgetting how to breathe.

but the gills are gone, and rin isn’t underwater, he’s in a bed. white walls, bright lights, hanging fabrics, windows.

rin looks down and sees a pair of shaking knees, and then realizes he’s on his back again just before everything whites out.


	10. olympics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for a somewhat old (sorry, again) anon request of ‘rin seeing nitori after winning the olympics’ | no warnings, this is all fluff
> 
> (i dont think rin would actually have time within a canonical timeline to compete in the 2016 olympics in rio, but let’s just pretend, shall we)
> 
> \----------

“He’s on!”

Aiichiro gets caught mid splash, stomping on the heap of wet laundry he’d decided to wash in his tub. It saves a few coins, and the only laundromat open this late is too far to walk to. He could easily have done it another time, during the day, but sitting around and waiting for the event to come on was driving him crazy - he had to keep busy.

He nearly slips on the tile, feet soaking wet, as he skitters out of the bathroom as quickly as he can. His roommate is shouting at him to _“get over here, it’s happening, hurry up,”_ and Aiichiro feels his heart beating in his throat, his pulse thrumming like a rabbit kicking its feet against his neck.

The picture isn’t great. They don’t have cable, and his roommate - Hana - balances on the balls of her feet to adjust the bunny ears balanced on top of the tv. Ai sits on the floor, holding his knees to his chest, squeezing his wrists. His feet make wet imprints on the rug.

“Turn it up,” he requests breathily. The roar of the crowd is like static, the voices of the commentators tinny and distant, but Aiichiro feels inexplicably close to the boy that changed his life.

And there he is. He emerges into the auditorium with a handful of supporting teammates, clad in all white and red. The camera cuts to him stripping his shellsuit, revealing his jammers, clinging black to the thick, well defined muscles of his thighs. Hana wraps her arm around Aiichiro’s shoulders, leaning into him and squealing in shared excitement.

The camera begins to scan past the finalists, and it’s there - _Lane 3, Rin Matsuoka, Men’s 200M Butterfly, 1:53.25 Q, Japan_. Aiichiro feels a surge of elated pride, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, his heart swelling so hugely he can barely seem to swallow over it.

“Come on, Rin-senpai!” Hana yells, laughing and shaking Aiichiro as he covers his mouth, watching the television with rapt attention. He’d been watching the events in Rio for days, studying the weather, wondering how Rin was coping with the pressure, if he was ever nervous. He doesn’t look it, not now. He bows minutely as the camera rolls past him, closes his eyes, shoulders serenely relaxed.

Before Aiichiro’s heart can wade its way through the excitement crowding his chest, the buzzer sounds, and Rin is kicking off, diving beneath the surface. Hana is brimming, shouting supportive cheers, while Aiichiro keeps his palm pressed to his mouth, focuses on his breathing. Rin’s arms slice through the water like it’s nothing, and even through the varying angles and cutting camera work, Aiichiro finds his lane easily, every time.

It’s the longest two minutes of Aiichiro’s life. Rin is only seconds behind first by the second turn, speeding towards the home stretch. The third 50 meter lap goes by in a flash, Rin kicks off the last turn -- and he’s doing it, racing for his life, almost a full head in the lead. The crowd roar echoes in the hollows of their small living room, and Aiichiro sobs into his palm when it happens, when the time finally stops.

 

Rin Matsuoka wins gold for Japan.

 

Hana shoots up, running around the tight 400 square footage of room they have in this apartment, screaming her head off. Aiichiro can’t seem to move, just sits covering his face, watching the tv through the blurring wet sheen now covering his vision. Rin tosses off his swimming cap, splashes in the water, his smile so, so brilliant. Rin wades over, congratulates the men in his neighboring lanes, and Aiichiro still can’t tear his gaze away, not even when Hana sits back down and shakes him.

“You know what this means, right? He’s coming home, Ai! He’s a national star, your Senpai!”

Aiichiro nods, throat too tight to speak. There’s a load of laundry soaking in his tub, wet and forgotten, and he’s too weak to try and wring it out now. His heart stutters in his chest, and he laughs, shocked relief zipping through every limb.

Rin won - he’s coming home.

 

\--

 

Rin returns amidst a less-than-modest media frenzy, and it feels like getting close enough to speak to him is going to be impossible. He doesn’t mention his school or his friends in any of the interviews Aiichiro catches, mostly because they’re usually too short, bit pieces on all of the Japanese medalists. Aiichiro sends him an email on a whim, pretends that he hadn't stopped replying to them nearly a year ago now, and forcefully pushes the distance that's still there to the back of his mind.

Still, Aiichiro hopes.

It’s autumn by the time they meet. Aiichiro feels like a planet orbiting the sun, chasing but never reaching, trying his best to continue on his own path without being too derailed at following Rin’s.

And it’s calm - a cool breeze rustles the turning colors of the leaves, the air smelling crisp, hints of smoky firewood from the homes nearby that don’t have central heating. Rin walks forward towards him, outlined by the setting sun, and Aiichiro’s heart leaps. He’s wearing slim fitted jeans, a loose grey beanie, and his team jacket - the red and white one, with the name of his country embroidered over the chest.

“Ai,” he says, as if he didn’t already have Aiichiro’s undivided attention, from the very first day they met - even across all manner of borders and continents.

“You did it,” Aiichiro says, quieter than he means to, his voice weighted with a confusing swirl of emotion. “You said you were going to do it, and you did. Congratulations, Rin.”

Aiichiro bows to him, tipping his head. He’s wrapped up in a scarf, hands tucked into the pockets of his tan colored pea coat.

Rin’s hands are cold, he notes vaguely, as Rin tilts his chin back upwards. “Thank you,” he says, smiling warmly, and Aiichiro lets go of a quiet whimper when Rin wraps him up in his arms, the medal Rin insists on wearing warming between their chests.

 

\--

 

“Did you cry?” Aiichiro asks boldly, pouring two cups of steaming tea from Hana’s grandmother’s teapot, the one etched in gold flowers. He almost hadn’t used it, worried he'd break it with the way his hands are still trembling in excited nerves, but he’s steadying himself, slowly. Rin, for what it’s worth in consolation, looks completely relaxed, seated opposite the counter in Aiichiro and Hana’s tiny kitchen.

“No,” Rin says, mock offended, smirking as Aiichiro hands him his mug.

Hana cleared out for the weekend, because she’s a saint, and because she knows how much this means to Aiichiro - she even helped him rehearse.

“Sure you didn’t,” Aiichiro comments teasingly, warming his hands with the hot tea, wrapping his thin fingers around his mug.

Rin laughs then, his eyes thinning to pleasantly curved slits, taking a gulping swig of tea.

“How’s Gou?” Aiichiro asks, leaning his hip against the sink, letting his mug rest next to it on the counter. Hana went to school with her, but they’ve drifted apart now, so Aiichiro asks as much for his roommate as for his own curiosity. “She must be so proud of you.”

“She’s good, yeah,” Rin nods, his smile somewhat more subdued, though it’s still there, still brimming beneath the surface. “Sousuke came by, he asked if I’d seen you yet. He said to say hello.”

Aiichiro’s eyebrows rise, pleasantly shocked. “He did? That’s so kind of him to think of me.”

Rin looks perturbed by this, though Aiichiro isn’t completely sure why. He’s having trouble looking Rin in the eyes, nerves warring with the years of missing him so badly it hurt. He _has_ to talk about this - Hana even agreed, and she’s the sensible one. It’s just how to bring it up…

“Yeah, everyone’s good,” Rin says quickly, standing and rounding the counter, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. His tshirt looks soft, Aiichiro notes with hazy interest. Another national team relic, something Rin will probably keep for the rest of his life. He wonders if Rin still has his Samezuka jacket. Aiichiro has his, nestled safely in the back of his closet.

“Listen, there’s something I need to tell you,” Rin begins, and he looks almost… nervous. He bounces on the balls of his feet, his arms tensed at the waist of his jeans, “But I should ask you-- um, are you and Hana…?”

“What?” Aiichiro frowns, confused, and then-- “ _Oh_ , no, no! She goes to my university, it’s cheaper to share an apartment then to live at the dorms. We’re just friends.”

Something like heat suffuses the pale skin of Aiichiro’s cheeks, he can feel it. _Why is he asking me this now?_

“Good,” Rin says, and he clears his throat, licks his lips. “Yeah, good.”

Rin takes a lunging step toward Aiichiro, his step somehow managing to be as anxiously tense as it is unflinchingly confident. Aiichiro’s heart swoops down to his stomach when Rin cups his face, presses a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth. Aiichiro, his mind running laps in his skull, pulse hammering, positively _melts_ against him.

“What?” Aiichiro asks dazedly as Rin pulls back. Rin hasn’t let go of his face, he notices, and then he grips Rin’s forearms in case he feels like changing his mind.

“I’m sorry I haven’t written, or kept in touch, I just--” Rin dips down, kisses him again, focuses the warm attention on the swell of Aiichiro’s lower lip, “--I’m not good at it, I know.” He kisses him again, his mouth opening, teasing little licks past Aiichiro’s teeth.

“Wait,” Aiichiro croaks, his chest too full, his heart soaking Rin up like a wet sponge, the kind that triple in size. He tugs on Rin’s arms, and Rin kisses him again, and again - once on the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his mouth again, teeth tugging. “ _Wait_ , Rin--”

Rin stops when Aiichiro presses a hand to his chest, pushing gently. He looks… terrified, which is not something Aiichiro ever wants to be responsible for. Rin should look the way he did when he won that gold medal, always, beaming a fiery grin, eyes alight with confidence. Aiichiro just has to say this first, has to get it out of his system.

“I’m sorry,” Rin mumbles, moving away, but Aiichiro catches him, gripping the emblem of the Japanese national team in his fist.

“No, just. I have some things I wanted to tell you before I ever got the chance to kiss you, but you kind of beat me to it, so, just. Wait a second.”

Rin looks calmer then, the slightest quirk to his brow as he watches Aiichiro’s attempts at catching his breath with something like mild amusement. Once Aiichiro’s sure his heart isn’t going to be running out through the cracks in his ribs anytime soon, he speaks, and is sure to say it clearly, confidently. Rin deserves at least that.

“You were such a huge part of my life,” Aiichiro says, and part of him tries to remember the quiet encouragement of Hana’s face when he went over this with her, supporting him, but all he can see is Rin’s blossoming hope. “Even if you didn’t realize it, or you don’t agree - you were.”

Rin smiles warmly, the spread of lips over sharp teeth smooth and easy. “You were a huge part of mine--”

“No, I’m not finished,” Aiichiro interrupts, steadfast in getting this out past the newly formed knot in his throat, because it’s been festering in him for far too long. Rin, if anything, looks mildly impressed. “Because you can’t just come back and kiss me, okay? You need to know that I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen years old, and I can’t have you just kiss me and it not mean anything, I can’t watch you leave again and still hold onto you like this--”

“Hey,” Rin says, moving back to holding Aiichiro’s face, and Aiichiro blushes at the realization that he dove into a fast, rambling mess. “I’m not leaving again.”

Aiichiro’s heart soars, doves taking flight, his pulse the flutter of their wings against the wind. “You’re not?” he asks.

“No. And why do you think that didn’t mean anything?” Rin asks, frowning with deep concern.

“I just thought…” Aiichiro says, and then he trails off, because he isn’t exactly sure where that came from himself. Rin is here, in his apartment, after agreeing to meet at the park near his school, responding to his anxiously stunted email. Rin conquered the world, and then came here-- to drink tea with a boy who was convinced he was long forgotten.

“You thought wrong,” Rin says, voice tinged in hurt, though Aiichiro tells himself it's justified. No emails, no phone calls. He ran into Makoto and Haru once, thought to ask them if they’d heard from him, but found he didn’t even want to know. Rin was training, joining teams, moving from country to country. But he did it, and now he’s here. That _has_ to mean something.

“Okay,” Aiichiro says, trembling with hopeful trepidation as he leans up and into Rin’s chest, balancing on his toes to kiss him this time.

Rin smiles against the kiss - Aiichiro can feels his teeth. Rin’s medal sits loosely surrounded by its ribbon on Aiichiro’s counter, warm from the touch of Aiichiro’s hands, examining it, but it’s here - surrounded by the fire of Rin’s touch, the heat of Rin’s palms against his cheeks - that Aiichiro realizes that he’s won something too.


End file.
